


The Dog, the Young Man, and the Cheerleader

by AnonAlpaca



Category: Pocket Monsters: Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire | Pokemon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire Versions
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Animal Death, Drowning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 13:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20875028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonAlpaca/pseuds/AnonAlpaca
Summary: Archie's nightmares have been getting stranger and worse lately. Every single one ends with him being left alone. Every time, it's partially his fault. Now he isn't sleeping on his own anymore, it's easy to pass them all off by morning - all except for the ones that appear to be teaching him a lesson.It's a common thread in his dreams that no-one knows who he is.In his nightmares, that includes himself.





	The Dog, the Young Man, and the Cheerleader

**[ Friday Night ]**  
  
At night, you can see a man running across rooftops.   
  
Telephone poles and satellite dishes that branch out from each other like trees crowd the concrete path, hundreds of feet in the air. The man vaults from gap to gap between buildings, every time falling away from the ground with just enough velocity to make it, landing on his feet with no thumping noise, no shiver.   
He knows he won’t mess up someone’s TV signal if he uses the poles to pull himself along and forward - somehow.   
  
In his right hand, he holds a Pokeball, holding it out to the wind and listening to it beep, a little like a notification on your phone you keep ignoring. His Mightyena is badly poisoned. Why is it poisoned? Who knows; certainly not him. He has time.   
As he runs past a penthouse, a glowing subway map plastered on its glass walls lets him know the Pokemon Center isn’t far away - just down and a little to the right, next to the little red circle and you’re set to go. So, as per the map’s instruction -   
  
He goes down.   
  
This time as he jumps, the velocity is just far enough to make it - to the _ wall _ , and he hits it with no thumping noise, no shiver, no attempt to grab the clear ledge that looks further and further away the more he looks at it -   
With a squeaking noise as he slips down the glass window, he gets a few seconds to turn his head down before he falls. Wind roars in his ears, and somehow never blows the bandana off his head. His eyes water. He can’t close them. He stares at the ground below him, watching the pattern on the pavement get clearer, clearer, clearer, clearer -   


  
Still feeling too tired to sleep, Maxie reached out and grabbed a glass of water off the bedside table, barely brushing it with the tips of his fingers. Archie made a little grunt as Maxie tried tucking himself into sleep - then nothing.   
And so, Maxie thought nothing of it, burying himself under the covers. He only crossed his fingers and hoped Archie wouldn’t start snoring.   


* * *

No thump.

The bush now has a perfect imprint of Archie in it, the leaves letting him go exactly halfway through the bush and not much further. Luckily, no-one is there to look at his little mishap. He dusts himself down, shaking off the twigs.   
A little red streetlamp directs him left, down the empty streets, with empty rubbish bins to the side and empty trees too, just to complete the picture. Every time Archie takes a look up at the glass buildings, he can’t crane his head back far enough, only seeing black reflective glass.   
White lights shine under the pavement, each one lighting up in sync with his step beside it - and only that one.   
  
The Pokemon Center is lit from the inside. The automatic doors open too slowly - Archie sidles in through the gap as soon as it’s big enough for him. 

He’s greeted by a lovely empty hall lit in whitish yellow, with the standard Center red desk and machine at the back, and a pile of beanbags off to the side. It’s one of those fancy combined ones, a Poke Mart and Center and everything else he could possibly want all rolled into one. There’s a map on the wall, even - it doesn’t look much like Hoenn or Sinnoh, more of a mass of dots on blue.   
  
As usual, Archie has to do _ everything _ himself. He’s hungry - of course, all the shops closed too many hours ago - so he puts a little bit of money in the vending machine, taking a look at everything he has to offer. There’s a Rage Candy Bar, a Zigzagoon sandwich, Moo Moo Milk, Finneon sushi, a Potion, and...the Antidote.   
  
Would putting coins in be weird, considering no-one’s here to collect them?   
It would be. But, Archie still gets a ten cent coin out of his wallet and carefully slots it into the machine - something hits the bottom with a loud metal clunk. He fishes it out, and with Zigzagoon sandwich in hand, he snatches a newspaper and leans back against the counter with a long, contented sigh. ...It feels a little bit like home.   
_ ‘Alola Rebellion! Is the new ‘Skull Aesthetic’ trend something for us grown-ups to worry about?’ _ reads the title. The whole article is full of pictures, clothes and hats; the text looks like a Torchic was made to transcribe it. He brings the paper a little closer to his face -   
  
A dog barks.   
  
Archie puts down the paper, letting it drift to the floor. His Pokeball is empty, the light on the button is out. The dog barks again. His Mightyena is -   
Scrambling over the porcelain floor, he collapses to the ground - in the centre of the lovely empty hall, draping himself over the shivering dog like a blanket. The dog coughs. Like the air was squeezed out of its lungs as soon as Archie pulled it close, buried it in his chest.   
“Dash?”   
The Mightyena won’t walk; its legs buckle every which way. So Archie picks it up, cradling it, shifting his arms as the head lolls backwards at an awkward angle. The fur is shifting. Little drops of sweat move under his fingers, purple bubbles popping between them.   
  
“Hang in there, alright? I’m here! Archie’s here...” _   
_ Behind the desk. Alright, that’s the first step. He finds the machine, laying the dog on top as the midriff droops between his arms, moving it so it looks vaguely comfortable. The next step?   
“Don’t - don’t fall asleep.“   
The antidote. Clearly, the antidote is the next step, and -   
...His wallet’s empty.   
“You’re gonna be all better soon.”   
  
So he grabs the control panel, coated with candy-coloured switches and scales with spirals and triangles and stars on the top, the exact same chicken-scratch text on a big red button. His hand skates over all of them - none of them look familiar. Except the big red button.   
Nothing. An angry-sounding beep and a red circle with a cross through it comes up on the screen. Is it because he’s not a Nurse Joy? Is that it? Why, if there aren’t any Nurse Joys here and likely never will be? He hits the red button, again. And _ again _ . The machine only glows a dull white, and nothing else.   
The dog’s eyes roll backwards.   
  
...How could he forget how to _ use _ one of these things?   
“No, no, _ wait - _ “   
He tries shaking them awake, and the fur is loose, thinning. Like a wet rag covering a body. And so he turns them over, quickly as possible, the body twisting but the head still lolling in the same place - he leans over, hands over where he thinks their heart should be, pressing down -   
  
...Through the fur, his hands hit the top of the machine. 

* * *

  
Archie’s eyes shot open.  
  
_Tick, tick._  
He kept them open, focusing on the one thing he could hear - wondering if he could get a grace period before falling back asleep.   
_Tick, tick._  
The sweat plastering his hands was _his, _after all.  
_Tick, tick._  
Strange how that works, he thought, I’m very easily tricked when I’m asleep.  
He turned over to see if Maxie had been woken up, maybe find out after the fact that he’d tossed and turned earlier on, running and falling in the dream.  
  
...Maxie was out of it, and dreaming of mountainous vistas and precious gems. (Well, judging by the faint smile on his face, he might’ve been.) And Archie smiled too, happy at least someone in the bed didn’t feel vaguely ill.   
So deep down he knew he couldn’t do something like forget an Antidote in favour of...what was it? Something selfish, probably - that was how dreams worked, after all. At least for him.  
  
He pulled the blanket up around him, trying to get the residual feeling of damp, sticky fur off of his hands. That’s not how poison works, he reminded himself, trying to remember the last time Dash got poisoned in a fight, how much less..._over dramatic_ it looked. They just coughed and couldn’t stand right and wasn’t_ expecting_ him to come running with the Antidote -   
  
The cough was the same.  
  
What was he meant to do now? Take a drink of water?   
How easy was his body to trick, if running and jumping and seeing his dog die was enough to make him not want to get out of bed? If he just turned over and went back to sleep, he could wake up the next morning and see them and move on with his day - maybe even make Maxie breakfast since they’d had a long week.  
  
It wasn’t like he woke up _screaming._   


* * *

  
**[ Sunday Night ]**

Archie wakes up on Day 18 of the Long Rainy Season, staring up at the blue canvas of his tent.

It’s lit from the inside - it’s his turn on the generator, as it has been for the past few days. He hopes it’s light outside too. ...Otherwise he’s going to be in charge of the torch, and he hates doing that.  
  
He peers out of the already zipped-down entrance, and to the lowly-lit subway platform.   
Carefully, he steps over the tracks he’s been camping on, gumboots barely missing the electrified third rail - and pulls himself up, up and out. Low to the ground, he makes his way to the tent on the platform, the only other person staying in this station with him.   
Their entrance is open too.   
“Hey,” says the young man inside, pulling an empty canvas bag on his back.   
  
“Do we go to the old market?” He ties a blue bandana around his head, one with a skull and crossbones on the top.   
“The food’s probably gone off...”   
“Okay, yeah, but the rest is fine.”   
“Mmhm,” Archie finishes, slinging his own bag on his back and taking them both out of the subway and into the open city. White lights shine under the pavement as they step on the cracks, though only half of them actually work.   
  
The young man looks back at Archie for a second; both of them can’t see well, through the hair plastered to their faces. The sky above is light...and by light, that means a slate grey instead of pitch black. A blanket of rain covers the entire city - Archie should know. He’s checked, multiple times.   
“Follow me.”   
But the lights will show the way.   
  
It’s a left turn, a right turn, a cross over the canal and a straight shot towards the ocean, and they’ll be at Slateport’s old marketplace - ready to borrow anything that the old owners just happened to wrap in plastic, before the rainy season started.   
It takes a while for Archie to remember he can just _ walk _ on the motorway ramps, dart into the road where at some point in time, he _ should’ve _ been run over.   
  
“I can’t believe this rain is still going. You have any idea why?” the young man asks Archie, grabbing his hand and nearly throwing him off balance. They form a chain, both hanging onto the icy cold guard rail, tight as they can.   
“I guess Mother Nature just hates us now,” he explains, flashing them a smile.   
“Right.”   
Archie stops.   
“Can’t think of any other reason.”   
“Oh, _ really? _ ” the young man says, quickly switching places with Archie in the chain.   
Though he can’t see it now, Archie nods. It’s probably best if we just keep moving, he thinks, if we’re going to get there before the flooding gets much worse.   
What route did they even _ take _ last time?   
  
“Right,” he says, pointing at the canal ahead, “What do we do about that?” The young man gives him a strange look. After all, the water in the canal is barely distinguishable from the shallow river running down the road.   
“We go through it, I guess,” they say, stepping forward. They run now, splashing still more water everywhere and stop at the canal’s edge. Alone, he hangs from the safety rail that should’ve had a drop on the other side...and wait.   
  
“Come on down, the water’s lovely,” they call, grinning very widely.   
“Ahh, very funny - “   
Archie grabs their hand tight.   
“On the count of three, we both step in and start swimming,” the man explains in a hushed voice, “And we’ve got to hang onto each other, else we’ll just lose each other, right?...”   
He points over to the other side of the canal, to a faded string of bunting tied to a post.   
Archie looks down, and nods before he actually gets to see the river.   
  
It’s very, very smooth; no whitewater or foam. ...Only the odd leaf and plastic bag that pass by so fast he thinks he was imagining it. He can’t see the bottom. Maybe _ he _ could -   
“Alright. Three.”   
The young man dips a toe in the water and looks over to see if Archie’s watching.   
“Two.”   
He isn’t; the old man’s still focused on the leaves.   
“ _ Two. _ ”   
  
“One,” Archie says, remembering the rules, right as the young man steps directly into the water stream, as dripping wet hands slip through each other, as Archie leans forward into the river but catches himself on the guardrail behind him.   
  
...He can’t see the bottom.   
  
For a second, the man looks back. The current instantly sweeps him away as fast as the leaves, the water still as ever - his eyes get wide, his neck cranes up as high as physically possible. He manages to croak out ‘ _ no _ ’, before his mouth goes under.   
His arms stay above the water for ages; reaching back for Archie’s outstretched hand even if the current’s turning him the wrong way.   
And then, he gives up on that.   
  
...Archie goes straight back to clinging onto the guard rail. Pelted by the rain, he still hangs over the water, staring at the place where the young man had been.   
His mind goes back and forth. Let go. Pull yourself up. Go in. Don’t. In between each idea, the word ‘no.’ Finally, he pulls himself back, hugging the metal poles and crouching on the sliver of concrete between him and the water. Tightly, completely, he screws his eyes shut.   
  
If he did step in, would it have dragged him under just as fast, or was he just thinking that _ teenager _ had the strength he did?... 

* * *

  
Archie wakes up on Day 19 of the Long Rainy Season, staring up at the blue canvas of his tent.   
...And he’s just woken up from a horrid, horrid dream.   
He peers out of the already zipped-down entrance, and to the lowly-lit subway platform. There’s a tent there, lit up from the inside with a generator. The entrance is already unzipped and open.   
  
There’s no-one inside, nothing left on the tent floor.   
Nothing apart from a single bundle of flowers.   
...Archie’s mouth hangs open, and he doesn’t take another step.   
  
The events of last night come back to him all out of order, first the idea that he pushed the man into the canal, then the idea that he jumped by himself - finding the unsold flowers in the market with a ‘thinking of you’ card tied to them and slotting it into his coat pocket - and coming back with nothing but that.   
He can’t remember whether the flowers were real or not.   
He can’t remember if he checked the current or not.   
  
...He can’t remember ever finding out that all the trains were cancelled.   


* * *

“_ Gah! _” 

Archie’s eyes shot open again, and he jerked back into the headboard with a thump. He took a look to his right. Something had just come from there, big and dark, and…  
Oh.   
Slowly, Archie slumped back down from where he was sitting, covering his face with his hand and trying to remember what just happened to him.   
Or rather, what he just did.   
Was it just him, or had these dreams gotten _ worse _ \- no, more surreal?   
  
“ _ Mmrgh, _ ” came a little voice from next to him, mumbling into their pillow.   
Last night he’d been fine. He’d had a nice dream about enrolling Dash in a dogsled race, even.   
“...You alright, dear?” Maxie asked quietly, turning to Archie as he tucked himself back in. A small grin grew on Archie’s face as he turned to face them, and Maxie felt a little more ready to go back to sleep again.   
  
“I think I just got hit by a fuckin’ train,” he explained, chuckling.   
  
“...Oh, now I _ need _ to know how what happened.”   
Archie shuffled over, fluffing his pillow.   
“Well... it was _ absolutely _ my fault,” he began, “I think.”   
Maxie sat up in bed, eyes widening a little just as he finished mulling over what Archie said, wondering if he’d heard them right - and if he had, whether he’d guessed right. ‘My fault,’ ‘hit by a train,’ what other conclusion could he come to?   
...A less morbid one, preferably.   
  
“Yeah, I’d decided to set up camp on some subway track,” Archie explained, sitting up too, “...It was an accident, I know that much,” he finished, quietly.   
Maxie only nodded.   
“So was the dream-you holding a protest or something?”   
“It was more that me and this...other guy had the whole city to ourselves, so that was fun,” he continued, getting to the part where he had to pick his words carefully but still , “And it was raining _ really _ hard, and everyone must’ve decided to up and leave at once…”   
“Ach, cowards.”   
“Yep.”   
“...I’ve had plenty of dreams where I’m in an empty city myself,” Maxie explained, “And the worst part is always waking up after what feels like hours of being completely by yourself, and then almost...still being by yourself, sometimes.”   
He smiled, as he found himself with his boyfriend lying in his lap - who was still beaming, just half as much.   
“Or maybe the worst part is when you only realise halfway through that there’s no-one running all the Poke Centers.”   
  
“Yeah, I had that one too…But what’s the _ weird _ thing,” Archie continued, “I wasn’t alone this time. I had this guy camping with me, and I think it was an old Aqua grunt…”   
“Did he turn out to be a fish?” Maxie asked as he nudged him - and watched Archie suddenly go silent. As though this was a new addition to the story he didn’t think of adding.   
  
“...He might’ve, actually. Cause he jumped in a river the last time I saw him. He...didn’t come back up,” he explained, sitting up and turning away as he did, “And that was when I woke up, in the dream, ‘cause I didn’t think it could’ve actually happened, and...then I got hit by the train.”   
“Ohhh, that must’ve been awful…”   
“Mmhm,” Archie finished, feeling like Maxie summed it up well.   
  
“But still, he could’ve grown gills and...swam off,” Archie continued, yawning, “Maybe that’s what my brain’s trying to tell me; I’d be better off if I was a fish.”   
“Since when was _ that _ new information?”   
  
The pair slumped against the headboard again, falling back down onto their pillows at the same time. Again, Archie felt like his body could pass back out in a second...but his _ head _ wouldn’t.   
“Still, do you want to try to sleep or not?” he asked, getting his attention with a brush against his cheek, “It’s…” he continued, picking up his phone and turning it on _ at the full brightness _ \-   
“ ** _AUGH, WHY - _ ** _ god damnit, you -” _ He tapped blindly at the screen, swiping to the left and right. _   
_ _ “ _ ...ah, four in the morning.”   
“Ough,” Maxie groaned, still covering his eyes.   
  
“Anyway, I reckon I might…” Archie answered, yawning loudly, “I’ve got work tomorrow.”   
“Good point.”   
Archie felt someone hanging onto his back, lightly - just enough pressure to let him know he was there and just enough to let him go to sleep as fast as possible.   
“If you find yourself having a nightmare again, just...tap me on the shoulder or something.”   
“You sure?”   
“Yes, yes,” Maxie replied, “why’d I ask you to if I wasn’t?”   
The man looked almost chuffed as he pulled Maxie in for a quick kiss on the cheek. Maxie slipped out of bed after a second; their water glasses were empty.   
“Be right back, dear.”   
  
Water always helped, that’s what Archie said. 

* * *

** [ Wednesday Night ]**  
  
Everyone came back.   
  
Mauville City is still brightly lit, even this early in the night. Outside, light rain falls from a cloudless sky, a trash collector trundles down the road, and a few Gible run free on the streets.   
And Matt is here.   
  
Walking side by side with Archie into the main square of the mall, they both stick their tongues out at the glass, as they pass Narcissus’ Mirror Shop. They’ve a lot of money in their pocket, no idea what they’re going to spend it all on. Mostly food, maybe a Pokemon or two.   
“You wanna see if they have a Carvahna for sale at the NetBall aquarium?” Matt asks, rifling through the paper notes.   
“They do, I looked ‘em up!”   
“Aaah, thanks - ” He starts to run ahead, pulling Archie along with him even as he jumps onto the edge of a raised flowerbed, holding out his arms just to stop himself from falling over.   
Archie almost can’t keep up, but he tries.   
  
“How long do they take to evolve into Sharpedoes?”   
“I dunno, I found mine when it was already grown.”   
“...Darn.”   
...And he can’t help but wonder why he won’t just say ‘damn.’   
  
“Guess it depends on how often you fight things with it,” Archie adds, as they pass a fountain and he pulls them both towards the aquarium, just to the left.   
“Ach, mine’s gonna evolve really slow, then…”   
“Gahaha!”   
They find the blue carpet that stretches from the entrance, passing a few plastic stands advertising the place - blue and plastered in glitter.   
“We really need to do battles more often, huh?” says Matt.   
Archie’s finding it difficult to read what’s written on them.   
“Heck yeah, we do!” he laughs, shoving the glass door open and tearing his eyes away -   
  
The inside of the aquarium is filled with towering glass tanks, bordered by bamboo sticks and covered in paper stickers. The floor is clear too; Feebas swim under their feet. Some of the price tags, handwritten in bright permanent marker, stretch out as long as Archie’s arm - they block out the blue light, filtering through the ceiling lamps.   
“You free tomorrow?”   
It’s just like a real ocean.   
“Should be.”   
  
There aren’t any attendants around to tell them where the Carvahna would be; so Matt runs up the little flight of stairs himself, and leaves Archie behind on the ground floor with a wave and a smile. That’s fine; it’s always been. ...They’ve been walking and talking for ages.   
He pulls up a chair and watches the plastic seaweed inside the tanks shimmy, and the Shellos slowly climb the glass.   
  
And then he notices something.   
  
Something near the back is swimming up to him, pausing as he presses his face against the glass and only making tiny, tiny kicks in the water every so often. It’s a blue, blob-shaped, fairy-like creature, trailing two bubbles behind it on thin, _ paper-thin _ streamers. The skin shimmers as though it’s trying to turn invisible, but can’t.   
Its hands point to Archie’s side - to a little paper sticker right next to his face.   
  
‘ 120,000 100,000 Poke-Dollars (16% OFF!)’   
‘Yellow-Dotted Manaphy.’   
  
Archie recoils. The _ Manaphy _ recoils, keeping an eye on the hands that might be about to reach inside the tank and grab it. A muffled squeak brings all the rest coming, staring up at him with wide eyes.   
They’re all so beautiful.   
  
Too many in such a small space.   
  
Everything in the tank looks wrong; the plastic seaweed too green, the natural ocean-ish tinge to the water was clearly just algae. And now that he thinks about it, Manaphies aren’t naturally that pale and greenish. They don’t come with notches in their fins.   
“Matt...Matt, get over here.”   
He holds out one hand towards them like he’s shushing a group of crying children, but the other hand is clenched by his side. How much did they cost again? 100,000 Poke-Dollars each?   
Those things deserved to get sold for _ millions. _ No - no, poor wording - they shouldn’t even be here at all, of course.   
“What’s going on?” Matt asks him, seeing Archie with his back turned. He’s holding a Carvanha in a plastic bag, eagerly pressing up against the sides.   
  
“...come.”

  
“Uh - are those _Manaphies?_”  
“They shouldn’t be allowed to have these.”  
“How did they _get_ so many?”  
“Poachers, probably,” Archie snaps, getting up, turning his back on the tank and speaking as loud as he likes, “Paid poachers, paying off anyone that tries to say _‘those are fucking endangered, put them back.’_”  
Matt doesn’t quite know how to respond.  
  
“It’s..._horrifying,_ that’s what it is - like, is this what owning Pokemon has come to?”  
...Matt turns to the Carvahna in his hand.  
“Yeah, like if you think about it, I - “  
“_You’re_ fine,” Archie clarifies, “But then there’s everyone else. Just...getting the rarest pet as some kind of status symbol. A living, breathing status symbol.”  
  
He almost leaves the aquarium with Matt in tow then and there, but...he stops. It’s the people passing right by the place, that’s what does it.  
“And_ I’m_ the only person that’s got a problem with it.”  
  
“Nah, I’m sure there’s plenty of other people,” Matt replies, clapping him on the back a little _too_ lightly, “That’ll be why the tank’s so empty, no-one wants to buy them. Right?”  
  
“I _mean_, why has no-one called the International Police?” Archie corrects, narrowing his eyes, “Those things need to get confiscated. Right now. As_ well_ as all the profits they got from them.” His hand hovers over his phone, but never pulls it out of his pocket.  
“...By someone who actually knows how to take care of them.”  
“Oh, yeah, yeah…”   
  
They both leave at last, hand in hand - Archie pulls them to the side, to sit on another raised flower bed. And maybe talk more.   
Matt waits patiently, for Archie to turn back and face him.  
“I should - no, I’m _not _going to stop being mad about this.”  
“Are you gonna report them?” Matt asks quietly, hoping that was the right question -  
  
“No...I won’t.”  
He takes his bag off his back.  
“Matt.”  
“...Yeah?”  
Archie takes a deep breath, and smiles.  
  
“The tank you got for Carvahna, how big is it?”  
“_Uh - ”_  
“Don’t worry, we won’t _buy_ them back,” Archie laughs, “One, they’re a hundred thousand dollars, two, they don’t deserve the money.”  
“Of course - of course not, but, like…”  
  
The bag unzips to reveal a large baseball bat.  
“I think we should break them out,” says Archie, taking Matt’s hand and trying to lead him inside, “Just to be sure, you know?”  
  
“Wh - “ Matt splutters - “No! That’s -_ that’s illegal!_”  
“And so is selling a Legendary Pokemon.” He turns his back on Matt, looking down at the floor as he slings the metal baseball bat over his back. The crowds have all dispersed by now; but even if no-one gets to see him do this...it’ll still be worth it.  
  
“Archie, _stop - _”  
He pauses; wondering what kind of argument he’ll make.  
“You...can’t be doing this,” he stammers, “You’ll just hurt yourself.”  
“Ohh,_ this _again._”_  
  
“Say the owners come back. Or - or we can’t care for the Manaphies. Is it...worth it?”  
“It’s fine,” Archie says, turning back mid-step with a wide grin on his face, “You can trust me; you just have to be ready to carry the ones that won’t fit in my arms.”  
“We could still just call the police - “  
“It’s kind of my responsibility, though?”  
“_No, it’s not! It’s really not!_”  
  
“You should’ve _seen _them - “ he finishes, his voice dropping low before Matt grabs his arm, pulling him backwards.   
“Hey, you seem...really anxious,” Archie snaps back, “It’s not like you.”  
Matt waits for Archie to look him in the eye, and stop smiling like that.  
But in the end, he says absolutely nothing.  
  
“As I said, you don’t have to go in there with me. If the owners do come back, you can skedaddle - “ he explains, motioning away with a flap of his hand, “I can handle everything else.”  
He claps a hand on Matt’s shoulder, like he always used to do.  
_“_You can just be like my cheerleader._”_  
  
Matt brushes off his hand and steps back - yet again without a word, he turns tail and runs.   
Archie tilts his head.

  
“I guess not, then,” he chuckles.   
  
And finally, able to focus properly now, he strides toward the aquarium’s entrance with a pit in his stomach he could easily ignore when the time came.   
Soon, he stands in front of the Manaphy tank, with all the baby blue creatures pressed up against the glass waiting for him to arrive. They coo, squeal like children, hold their breaths in anticipation as the nice man outside smiles - then have that breath knocked out of them as the huge metal baseball bat hits the glass, breaking it as easily as paper and spilling water onto the glass floor. Another swing gets the broken shards, the next only hitting water.   
  
The nice man isn’t even looking at them.   
  
The metal bat hits the Corphish tank, the Gorebyss tank, the Luvdisc tank, all in one circular swing. An alarm bell sounds; but it’s far, far too late. Every single creature inside is now flopping on the ground, carried out the entrance and into the mall by waves and waves of water.   
  
Inside the NetBall Aquarium, it’s raining glass.   
Archie steps backwards, the shards sticking into his sandals and pricking his feet. The Manaphy seem to be making their way out, however slow, however they have to drag themselves over the pavement outside. He’s done his bit. Those things are clever.   
And as the water from every tank in the aquarium spills out onto him, he watches the empty space where a crowd could be gathering. The doors automatically close him off.   
  
His feet raise off the ground, as the water reaches his neck. He floats there suspended, still hanging onto the metal bat that weighs him down. Shards of glass dart in the water, just like the fish. Some appear to be floating to the surface, and Archie concludes they were long dead.   
  
The last thing he thinks, before the cold, cold water spills into his mouth and nose - is how whoever ran this place didn’t keep it at the right temperature for fish.   


  
...Archie’s eyes snap open.   
  
He rolls over in bed, and of course, it’s late in the morning already. The king-sized bed is half-empty, Maxie’s already gotten up to make breakfast.   
He’d woken up with pins and needles in his feet and his mouth tasted horrible, and a towel wrapped around his pillow to dry off his still damp hair. Come to think of it, the rest of him was awfully damp too; definitely not with sweat -   
What had he _ done? _   
There was cleanup to be done, something he has to sort out.   
  
That’s it, he concludes, sitting up in bed, you had a nightmare about drowning. You had a nightmare, he reiterates, you drowned in a sea of glass - and so he snatches his phone off of the bedside table. He needs to talk to Matt; he _ deserves _ that.   
  
[ You have x new messages. ]   
  
Good old Matt.   
  
( A message was removed. )   
[ I can’t come over today. ]   
  
Good, reliable, forgiving Matt.

  
[ I really really don’t want to see you. ]   
[ Like by all means tell me why you don’t actually see me as ‘your cheerleader’ but it’s kind of making sense. Thanks for coming right out and saying it at least. ]   
[ Still I ]   
[ I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and ]   
[ This can’t work for me anymore ]   
  
He can’t stop himself from scrolling further down.   
  
[ Seriously looking back it’s like you shut off completely when things are less than rainbows and sunshine but we can’t keep that up anymore ]   
[ Like I can’t be allowed to get into the serious stuff because that’s not what I am to you ]   
[ And then you come out and say that being anxious isn’t like me ]   
[ When you’re about to do another suicide mission ]   
[ Like that ]   
  
[ Do you have any idea? ]   
  
[ I’ve waited for a long time wondering when he’s going to pay attention ]   
[ And not just go off and do his own thing and leave himself in that hole he dug ]

[ fuck i can’t write ]  
[ long story short I’ve realised you aren’t going to ]   
  
“Aren’t you going to tell me what happened last night?” says a faraway voice that Archie ignores.   


* * *

  
Archie’s eyes snap open. Everything definitely feels more solid; the pillows more pillow-y, the light more morning-y. He snatches the phone off the table, ready to -   
  
( A message was removed. )   
[ We can’t come over today. ]   
  
[ We really, really don’t want to see you. ]   


The phone slips out of his hands.  
This is it, isn’t it?   
He doesn’t want to get out of bed, as per usual.   
  
If he stays here, staring at the ceiling while his heart thumps louder and he simmers with embarrassment, maybe the sun won’t notice he’s started the day and he can take as long as he likes. Staying and thinking about what he’s done.   
And maybe by the time he gets out and he can actually turn on the phone again, it’ll be like -   
Nothing ever happened, but that’s...the point.   
  
Hadn’t he learned his lesson?   
“Aren’t you going to tell me what happened last night?” asks a very familiar voice from the kitchen, “You came home positively _ drenched. _ ”   
  
Archie freezes.   
  
“ _ Well? _ ” says Maxie, raising his voice.   


* * *

Archie’s eyes snap open.

  
“ Helloooo, Earth to Archie? ”   


* * *

  
Archie’s eyes snap open.

  
“_I know you’re there._”   


* * *

Archie’s eyes snapped open.  
  
...And this time, he waited.   
  
The voice usually took a couple of seconds.  
Had they finally realised that Archie was purposefully not replying and given up too? That must’ve been it, they’d gotten wise to him - in fact, he didn’t even know why he’d done it the first time but of course that wasn’t a proper _excuse_, and now, even if he were to drag himself out of bed and explain himself, it wouldn’t...  
  
He reached out for the phone one last time. To check.  
To be honest, even if he read it all again, it would be better than waiting for when he had to. Trying not to make it so much as _click,_ he tapped the home button -  
  
Both people in the king-sized bed were flashbanged.  
“_Gah!_”  
“Shit, _shit,_ no,“ Archie gasped as he fumbled for the off button in the white haze, “Sorry -”  
  
“Good _gracious_,” Maxie mumbled into his pillow, “What time is it?...”  
“...it’s midnight,” Archie admitted, after a long sigh and after the glow had finally faded, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I...I thought I got a message from someone,” he explained, barely pausing, “I probably dreamed it, though - anyway, I’ll go back to sleep...”  
He forced himself back down into a good position to pass right out.  
  
Still, once he was finished rubbing the sleep out of his eyes...Maxie turned back over and shuffled closer.  
“Dear,” he said softly, “...Did you have a nightmare?”  
  
“...yeah.”  
Archie took a few deep breaths, trying to get himself down off that very, very obvious panicked high he was just on.  
“One of those ones where you wake up a couple of times...in the dream,” he explained, noticing how Maxie clasped his hand tightly as he did.   
“Don’t worry, I know I’m actually awake this time,” they continued, letting his hand slip out of the grasp, “Like, somehow, before I noticed it was pitch black, I noticed _you _when I turned on the phone, and I realised it was done. ...You were already gone all of the other times.”  
  
“...did I die?” Maxie asked, in a quiet voice.  
“Y’ got up and made breakfast, actually.”  
“Ahhh.”  
“I - I should’ve worded it better, sorry -”  
“It’s fine.”  
Archie caught himself mid-sentence, and slumped up against the headboard. Maxie followed, turning on the bedside lamp with a clatter.  
  
“Did you want to talk about it now?...”   
Archie hid his face in his hand. In this light, he could’ve been wiping sleep out of his eyes or tears - and Maxie tried not to dwell on which.   
“Tomorrow?“ They leaned over to him -   
“Sorry, sorry. I zoned out,” Archie mumbled, “I - yeah, I think it’d be good.”  
_Finally,_ he thought to himself.   
  
“Just saying, I don’t remember much...“  
“_Archie,_” Maxie interrupted, turning to face him, “I can’t remember a thing from the one I woke up from either. You’ve nothing to apologise for; I’m already awake anyway.”  
“...Wait, really?” Archie tilted his head, giving a tiny nervous chuckle - “Hope I didn’t interrupt a nice dream…”  
“If I were ticked off about it, I’d say.”  
  
Archie nodded, remembering this wasn’t anything new.  
“Well,” he began, “I was in the...uh, s- “  
_Sorry._ He caught himself, let himself be quiet for just a second.  
“The New Mauville,” he continued, talking slowly, summarising everything one sentence and vague event at a time, “And I was with Matt, going to buy - something. A fish. It was sort of like the empty city dream? Except the world wasn’t ending.”  
“I see, I see…”  
“And no-one actually acknowledged it. Maybe it was just empty cause my brain couldn’t think of anyone else to put there. Like a lazy director.”  
“Probably.”  
“Anyway. We found this strange store, and they had…_Manaphies_ for sale.” He decided not to describe what he saw much further than that.  
“Good gracious, that’s awful. So did…” Maxie gasped, pausing halfway through his sentence - “Did _dream_-you get angry about that?”  
Angry? Did ‘angry’ even do it _justice_, that was the real question…  
  
“Very. Like, the, uh..._dream-me_ thought they were talking _to_ me, getting me to let them out…”  
“Did it go wrong?” Maxie asked,   
“Nope,” Archie admitted.  
  
Right then, he put the pieces together.  
“It worked.”  
_So what was the problem, then, _he asked himself in anticipation. He may as well say it; he’d be lying otherwise. Some kind of lying.  
  
“But, like - obviously Matt wasn’t okay with it, and then dream-me tried dragging him into it but also not dragging him into it, and he said ‘no’ and dream - “  
Why was he trying to separate him and_ them _again? Guilt? There wasn’t a them, just him.  
  
“And I...I said he shouldn’t be anxious and that he had to trust me or else, and that he should just be...like - “  
If he was guilty, that meant there was something there he was guilty _of. _He turned to Maxie, quickly so he could have their full attention - he looked taken aback enough already.   
“Archie?”   
  
“Like my cheerleader.”  
Maxie blinked.  
“...And I fucking _laughed_ when he ran off.”  
“Oh, no.”  
  
“So I broke in without him, I woke up in my bed, and he...he did it. He told me over text that he never wanted to see me again ‘cause I’d just...been _neglecting_ him all this time and he finally got it. And, like - it made sense. Like the dream was trying to make me get a clue.”  
Then he fell silent, out of breath.  
There was nothing else he could explain, let alone justify.  
It felt so strange, saying it all out loud. Did it feel right? No. Was it _supposed_ to? Also, no.  
  
“If it’s any comfort, I’m sure Matt wouldn’t do something like that over text,” Maxie said to them softly, holding Archie’s hand and leaning up against his shoulder - as their eyes glazed over with tears, staring straight ahead.  
“He’d talk it through with you first, if I’m right.”  
“What if it wasn’t _him _telling me I screwed everything up, though? Maybe it was everyone - like, _everyone _I’ve gotten close to, or...” Archie’s idea petered out and stopped making sense, almost as soon as he’d thought of it.  
  
“Well, clearly you _know_ it was wrong,” Maxie stated, firmly.  
Archie didn’t have a reply to that.  
“Give yourself a little more credit,” he continued, “It’s not like you’d be...letting your guard down or something if you did.”  
Archie bowed his head, thinking about it for a moment.  
“And if you do, someone would say something. That’s a lot easier now that we all aren’t...chasing after something all the time.”  
“I suppose if I wasn’t scared of that, I...I wouldn’t be calling it a nightmare, huh...” Archie replied, drying his eyes.   
“Exactly! You’ve got it. It’s a worst-case scenario.”  
“A test?”  
“Possibly.”  
  
Maxie cuddled closer to him, getting a tight and sure squeeze in return.   
“...you didn’t deserve another one,” Maxie added quietly - “I know that much.”  
And though Archie was a little too choked up to say it and he knew Archie couldn’t tell, he nodded.   
  
Even now, he felt like there was something else he had to say or explain, but there wasn’t anything left to talk about. Each time the words ‘can’t come over today’ popped into his head, Matt’s voice wasn’t attached to them anymore. It was his, and his voice was easy to shut up.  
...He’d been all chattered out. There was nothing stuck inside his head, anymore.  
All apart from one thing.  
  
“Do you reckon I should still talk to Matt about this?...” he whispered, “Like, just check in.”  
Maxie thought for a moment...and then quite a few more.  
“I might,” Archie finished, answering his own question - “Would that be weird?” he mumbled under his breath.  
“Honestly, if you just said the idea came to you in a dream,” said Maxie, giving him a goodnight kiss on the cheek - “...he’d be perfectly fine with it.”  
  


**Author's Note:**

> ayyyy thankyou for reading all of this; this was a fun experiment to write  
(i'm thinking of doing a nightmare fic centered on maxie at some point)


End file.
